Online courses are quickly becoming one of the top ways for people to learn new skills. Teaching online courses is a great way to share your passion and expertise with the world while making money at the same time. If you’re going to dive into online teaching, you’ll need some online course equipment essentials.

The biggest thing that keeps people from teaching their own online courses?

They don’t know what equipment to use.

They think it’s too expensive.

We’re going to take care of both of those right now. I’m going to show you the six main pieces of online course equipment I use to create my course. All for less than $250 TOTAL!

And you likely can spend a lot less than that. Ready? Let’s go!

Please note: Some of the resources and tools below include my affiliate link, and I may earn a small commission if you do decide to purchase any of these great tools. It’s absolutely no extra charge to you. These are the specific tools I have used and had success with, and I would only recommend something I feel strongly about.

Physical Online Course Equipment

The three pieces of equipment below are what I currently use to create my online courses. This is the stuff many people think is just too expensive or too fancy. It’s neither.

All are incredibly simple to use and can be found for a grand total of $130. You can likely find them used for half that price. All require no set up. Just plug in and go!

The Blue brand makes terrific mics. This handy Snowball mic records crisp sound for your online course. It has three settings – one for picking up the voice of one person, and the others for picking up multiple people such as in a round-table interview.

It stands about 10 inches tall and is attached to a tripod stand that collapses for easy storage or portability.

So, how do you use it? Just plug the USB cord into a USB port in your computer and it’s ready to roll. Just open whatever recording software you want to use (more on this later), and select the mic as your recording device. It should show up as “Blue Snowball” in your list of microphones and/or recording devices.

This one might be my favorite. This little powerhouse from Logitech records 1080p HD video and can capture up to 15 MP photos.

It’s about 7 inches wide and weighs about half a pound. It also has an adjustable base that can be screwed onto most tripods. I use an extendable desktop camera tripod with it.

Like the Blue Snowball mic, this camera has a USB cord that is simply plugged into any USB port and ready to roll. You’ll know it’s on when the curved blue lights on either side of the camera come on.

This camera has a built-in mic, but I suggest using the Blue Snowball as your microphone even when using this webcam. By the way, don’t let the term “webcam” make you think this is limited to recording for the Internet only. You can also use it to record yourself for your course, or use it to record yourself while also doing a screen-cast recording of your computer screen (again, more on this later).

There may be settings where you want to record yourself on camera and it doesn’t make sense to use the Blue Snowball mic that might be too far away. You need a lapel mic.

This one’s pretty cool for only $20. It has a sturdy build and it’s terrific to use with cell phones.

You just plug the audio jack into the audio/headset port of your phone or computer. If using a computer, you just switch the setting to “ON” and select it as your audio recording device. If you’re using it with a phone or other type of camera, you leave the setting in the “OFF” mode since it will get power from the phone.

This BOYA lapel mic has a long cord so you can be further away from your camera if you need to be. You can hide the cord under your clothes. Using this mic will give you a richer and better-quality sound that using the mic from your camera or phone, especially if you are more than a couple feet away. It keeps you from sounding like you’re trapped in a hallway (which is a great thing!).

Online Course Software

The other half of the 6 online course equipment essentials is software. The best news is that you may already be using a couple of these. If you’re not, you’ll probably be pretty surprised at what they can do and how simple they are.

I’m a PC user, so I use PowerPoint to create any slides I might need for my online courses. If you’re a Mac person (you know, one of “those” people), you might want to check out Keynote.

The coolest thing about PowerPoint? You probably already have it on your computer. Remember earlier when I said you can get all six of these online course equipment essentials for no more than $250? PowerPoint is roughly $100 of that, so if you already have it, well you’re awesome and that takes away a huge chunk of your cost.

I’m a big fan of using slides and then recording my screen as I teach my online courses through my microphone (see how all of this is coming together?). This works really well for me because I do a lot of on-screen tutorials.

With PowerPoint, you can create any size slide you need, but I recommend keeping it in a 16:9 widescreen ratio, as this will work perfectly for most computer screens, phones and other mobile devices.

If you’re not quite ready for Photoshop (or can’t afford it yet), then you gotta check out Canva.

It’s an awesome online photo-editing tool with a ton of free templates, graphics and shape elements. Get as simple or as fancy as you’d like.

Canva can be used to create your online course cover image or thumbnail, any cool graphics you want in your course, PowerPoint custom templates, or even promotional images for your course. It’s really fun to just play around with seeing what cool stuff you can create.

Want to know how to record your computer screen? This is the best software I have found for the price.

There is a free version that limits recordings to 15 minutes, and slaps a Screencast-O-Matic watermark on your recordings.

The paid version? Just $15 per year. Peanuts.

The paid version has unlimited recording time, no watermark and a lot of video editing tools. You can also incorporate your webcam while recording your computer screen activity. OR, just record the webcam.

The one drawback is that video is limited to 720p HD resolution instead of 1080p HD. But I suspect that will change soon, if it hasn’t by the time you’re reading this.

Screencast-O-Matic also has cursor highlight, zoom features, and drawing features. You can cut video, add video or images, quickly add your logo to a video, add audio tracks and sever other things.

One of the biggest mistakes in growing my online businesses was not capturing emails earlier. I missed out on THOUSANDS of emails. (Still hurts!)

Capturing emails to grow a following is a MASSIVE part of your online business success. I’m currently moving my email marketing service away from MailChimp to MailerLite. Here’s why.

I started looking into MailerLite about two weeks ago, checking out their automation service, subscriber forms and campaign editor. I was able to convert my two main email lists over in one day.

Be sure to scroll down to the end for an on-screen tutorial showing how these features work.

Please note that some links below may include my affiliate link. If you decide to purchase any of these products or services through any of these links, it will be of no extra cost to you, but I may receive a compensation.

MailerLite Has Free Automation Email (Series)

The main thing that drew me to MailerLite was its free email automation service. In fact, all of MailerLite’s services are free up to 1,000 subscribers (more on this later).

Setting up a series of pre-written emails that automatically send in a predetermined sequence is the core of email marketing. It allows you to build trust with your following and lead them to what you eventually want them to do (purchase your product, hire you, enroll in your course, etc.).

MailerLite’s new feature is called Automation Workflows. You can set your emails to send in order when someone joins one of your subscriber lists. You can also set more detailed options such as what to do with a subscriber who doesn’t open or who does or doesn’t click on a link.

Basically, you can create a flow or a tree that funnels subscribers based on what action they take. Of course, you don’t have to do this. Your automation can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be or it needs to be.

Yes, MailChimp has a ton of automation features. But MailerLite’s automation is FREE, which is awesome for beginners and anyone with smaller subscriber lists.

Simple Drag-and-Drop Editor

Much like MailChimp, MailerLite has a drag-and-drop editor for creating individual email campaigns and subscriber forms.

There are several options including photo boxes, text boxes, video, titles, galleries, etc. MailerLite is still new, so the editor can use some improvements. Some of the photo areas are far away from the text, and there is some wasted space. But there are still a lot of customizations such as several fonts to choose from and custom colors.

With a straight-up comparison, MailChimp (image below) and MailerLite have a very similar drag-and-drop editor.

Everything’s Free Up to 1,000 Subscribers

MailerLite is new, so maybe they are offering everything or free for up to 1,000 subscribers to maximize the number of users.

Even at more than 1,000 subscribers, the first paid level is just $10 per month. That level is for 1,001 to 2,500 subscribers. For comparison, 2,501 to 5,000 subscribers is $20 per month, which is a great deal. You can also pay annually and save 30 percent.

The ability to create automated email series, customized landing pages and access to several different templates for FREE is pretty damn sweet.

Great MailerLite Landing Page Templates and Forms

Speaking of landing pages, it’s pretty rate to find them for free that actually look good.

Check out a landing page here I created using MailerLite to promote my free training on how to attract and land your dream customers (you should take that training, by the way… mmmmkay?!).

Landing Pages (a.k.a. Lead Capture Pages) are part of MailerLite’s Webforms section. As I write this post, there are eight different landing page templates on MailerLite. This is a HUUUUUGE benefit over MailChimp. And this is my favorite part of what I’ve discovered using MailerLite.

Using Google Analytics to monitor your blog traffic is free, simple and generates several different reports that give you awesome insight to grow your blog or website.

I’ll show you some of the most important things I look at for my own websites.

Be sure to scroll down to the end for an on-screen training and tutorial for these reports.

Using Google Analytics WordPress Plugin

To use Google Analytics, you need to first set up a free account. There are a few options to integrate it with your blog, but if you are using WordPress as your blog editor, then I recommend using the Google Analytics plugin.

This plugin allows you to simply enter a code (Web Property ID) generated by Google Analytics so that it can link to and track activity on your blog (see the screenshot below).

Once you link Google Analytics with your blog, it will automatically begin tracking visits and activity on your site.

Google Analytics Insights to Skyrocket Your Blog Traffic

So, what info and insights should you be paying attention to the most? Let’s look at some tracking from a couple of my websites so you can see what I pay attention to the most, and how I use it to continue growing MONETIZING my blog!

That’s really it. I don’t spend a whole lot of time analyzing and researching.

I put more of my time and effort toward creating content and promoting my sites. And honestly, unless you have a really complicated site or blog, you don’t need to spend a whole lot of time checking on your analytics.

BUT (big BUT) you seriously need to use this to grow your blog.

Just make sure you’re spending a lot more time taking action than you are analyzing. Let’s look at the main benefits and importance of each one.

Google Analytics: Site Content/Pages

This is my favorite one. This is what analytics is all about. It simply shows you the most visited areas of your site.

What pages, links and blog posts are people visiting most and spending the most time on?

As you can see from the screenshot below from one of my sites, three out of the top five most visited links on my site are blog posts. The top one accounts for nearly 27 percent of all visits to my site during the selected date range.

Think blog posts aren’t powerful, hhhmmmmmm?

At the time this screenshot was taken, that top post was written about five months prior. Sometimes you just don’t know which post will get popular. But use this Google Analytics report to show you which ones people are visiting most.

That way you can go back to these areas and add some related links, links to relevant product sales, email opt-ins, etc. Basically, spend time fluffing up most popular areas of your site.

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The other important thing this tells you is how much time people are spending on these pages and posts. A short amount of time is not always a bad thing. It depends on what you want your visitors to do.

Google Analytics: Source of Acquisition

This is exactly what it sounds like. It shows you where your visitors came from.

And that’s HUUUUUGE!

Are you getting visits from Google organic search? From Facebook? Pinterest?

This tool shows you how many visits you’re getting from different sources. It will also show you how many are new or returning visors and the average time they’re spending on your site.

This Google Analytics tool can show you where you need to focus your marketing effort.

Maybe you want to improve your traffic from Facebook. Or maybe your blog and content is more of a natural fit for Pinterest. You can focus on your strengths or try to find areas you want to improve.

You can see from the screenshot below that more than 78 percent of my total traffic comes from Google organic search. That means that I’ve done a pretty good job creating targeted blog posts and other content my target market is searching for.

Google Analytics: Behavior Flow

This one is a little complicated. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure you how to maximize and implement the info I get from this tool.

Still, it’s pretty damn cool.

It basically gives you a map of where people are traveling on your site.

EXAMPLE: Someone finds your blog post on Google, and from there they go to your About page. Then from there they click on your products page.

“Through Traffic” indicates the number and percentage of visitors who clicked on another link on your site. “Drop-offs” indicates the number that left your site after visiting that specific link.

It always helps to see the journey your average visitor takes on your site. It also can be surprising.

Pay attention to this because it gives you good insight to what visitors see as the important and relevant areas of your site.

Then, you can go back to these areas and add or change things that help them get to the point you eventually want them to go. Buy from you. Contact you. Hire you. Join your email list.

Google Analytics: New vs. Returning Visitor

This is a simple report that shows the number and percentage of new visitors and returning visitors. You can find this under the Audience section of Google Analytics.

It’s not an in-depth report, but it is very interesting.

If you have a growing number of returning visitors, that’s fantastic. That’s what you want. FOLLOWERS!

You can also compare the number of page views and average time spent on your site between new and returning visitors.

This can be interesting info since returning visors (especially some that come to your site or blog often) can behave very differently than new visitors.

SO…. those are the four primary Google Analytics blog traffic reports I use. Some of these I check once a week. Others I check once a month.

Just figure out what makes sense for you. But make sure you use this info to improve your blog and bring more value to your followers.

With four young kids, I’m as busy as anyone I know. The truth is, I have the exact same amount of time in my day as anyone else. And so do you.

One of the biggest excuses people give for not working their part-time business is “not enough time.” Here’s the dealio: There are 1,440 minutes in a day and 10,080 minutes in a week. If you treat your business like a real business, you will devote some consistent time to it. That’s going to be different for everyone.

For some people that might be just 30 minutes a day (which is 2 percent of the day). For others, it might be a few hours a day. “Having” the time isn’t the issue. Carving out the time is what matters. So, here are a few simple and practical ideas anyone can do to carve out time for your part-time home business.

Divide the Time You Work Your Part-Time Business

Think you need to work your part-time home business in one large block of time. Nope nope nope!

One of the best ways to avoid getting overwhelmed is to break up the time throughout your day that you devote to your business. Maybe you work 30 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at lunch and 30 minutes at night. Maybe you do two “power hours” during the day. Whatever makes sense for you, just be consistent with it.

Consistency, and creating a habit, is the key. However you decide to break up your schedule, make sure it’s doable. It has to be reasonable. You might need to make further adjustments to make it work, but once you find a grove, lock it in!

CONSISTENCY!

You’ll be amazed at how much time you really have in a day when you make an effort to do it.

Seems like everyone is trying to make money online blogging these days.

There’s a blog popping up like every nanosecond. So, if you’re looking at ways to make money online with a blog, don’t let the massive sea of blogs and sites scare you. The vast majority of people who start a new blog don’t follow through with it. They just quit.

So, if you’re willing to develop your blog and give it time to grow, you’re already in the top 10 percent.

CONGRATS!!

Quality will always trump quantity. So, yes, you need to be good. You need to know what you’re talking about, and you need to be passionate about it. But there are still more ways to make money online than there ever have been.

There’s room for you, too. Even if you’re not a writer or have never sold anything in your life. Here are four core things to focus on for making money blogging:

Pick a Topic You’re Passionate or Knowledgeable About

If you want to make money online blogging, it really has to start here. If you’re going to create content for your blog, you have to have some level of expertise and passion about your topic.

Whether it’s health and fitness, politics, parenting, Star Wars, sports collectibles, farm animals, movie and music reviews, underwater fire eating… whatever. Just make sure you have a knowledge and passion to share with the world.

Your passion and authenticity will always trump your writing ability. That’s that a license to be sloppy, but be yourself. Be genuine. Share your knowledge about your topic. You will attract the right people when you focus on what you believe. (Psst… click here for my 6 secrets to blogging mastery eBook.)

“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

This also builds you up as an authority. As you blog more and more about your topic and area of expertise, more people will look to you as (yep, you guessed it) the expert. You become the authority. This is huge for building a following.

Ultimately, you want to build a following of people who want and anticipate your content. these are the dream clients and dream customers you want to attract. They’re the ones who subscribe to your email list and want to be notified when you publish a new blog post.

More on how to monetize a following later, but just think that if you built a following of just 400 people paying you $100 a year, that’s $40,000 a year!

Far from it. While email open rates aren’t nearly what they were in their hay day (back when getting an email was like finding the golden ticket), building an email list is still a critical part of marketing your business and serving your clients. MailChimp is a great option for beginners since it includes a free option with lots of customization, and is very user-friendly.

Let’s look at a few powerful things MailChimp lets you do and why it’s so important for growing your business. Be sure to scroll to the end of this post for a video going over these specific features.

Build a Following and Provide Value with MailChimp

The best business builders in the world build networks and create a massive following. The big secret is that you don’t have to have thousands of fans or followers. Just think, if you had just 500 people paying you $100 per year, that’s $50,000 per year! Heck, even you had 250 people paying you $100 a year, that still $25,000 a year!

Those numbers are very achievable, given you have a product or service that people need or want. MailChimp is a great tool to help you build a following of people who actually WANT to be on your email list. You can add people to your email list using MailChimp’s opt-in forms or pop-ups. You can also import emails from an existing list.

Creating and cultivating an email list lets you provide value to your followers. If used the right way, this can go a long way in serving their needs. Sure, you want to promote your business, but you also want your emails to provide value. MailChimp is a great way to start doing that.

Using the Free Version of MailChimp

Please note: Some of the links below include my affiliate link, and I may earn a small commission if you do decide to purchase any of these great tools. It’s absolutely no extra charge to you. I only recommend something I feel strongly about, and have used or are currently using for my business.

The free version of MailChimp, called Forever Free, is a great option for beginners. Even if you just want to play around with most of the features, and you can actually do a lot of cool stuff with the free version.

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Do you want to take your home business to the next level? Do you want to learn how to attract and land your dream clients online? Do you want to create streams of qualified leads that find you and want to work with you?

If you answered yes to any of these, we should talk.

The contract economy is growing quickly. Technology has allowed more and more people to work remotely on a contract/1099 basis. The truth is, there are a whole lot of ways to make money from home today. And of you are reading this, you probably found a way that works fro you.

So, no matter if you are a network marketer, freelance writer, photographer or shuttle kids to and from school, I'd love to help you take your business to a higher level and help you grow as a home business owner.

Want some free home business coaching? The stop by my blog where I'm regularly adding fresh home business coaching tips. I blog about generating leads online, how to write like a pro, personal development, online branding, network marketing... heck, I even blog about blogging.

I hope you find it helpful, and please contact me to let me know what questions you have and what topics you'd like to see me write about. I truly do value your feedback.

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Have you been wanting to build a website or blog but just don’t know where to start? Does it seem like way too big of a task for you to tackle? Have you tried to market your business though social media but it’s just not getting anywhere? Well, here’s a little secret: it’s a whole lot easier than you think.

I’d love to talk to you about creating a professional online presence that generates leads, grows your network and, of course, makes you money! I have created some of the top-ranking websites and blogs in the industries I’ve been involved with, some of which have generated thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars a month in sales.